1. Field
One or more embodiments relates to robot localization using an image.
2. Description of the Related Art
Broadly speaking, robots may be autonomous machines which are able to do tasks on their own. The robots' usefulness can be attributed to their work performance in extreme situations or in areas that are dangerous to humans. In particular, mobile robots that can walk and clean house are becoming increasingly popular.
Such a mobile robot has a variety of functionalities including localization. The mobile robot may localize itself based on images captured from a camera mounted on the mobile robot. Simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) is a typical technique used by the mobile robot to keep track of its current location based on images.
SLAM allows the location of a robot to be found based on a positional relation of a feature point between image frames by registering the feature point in an initial image and keeping track of a location on an image corresponding to the registered feature point in subsequent images.
To find the location of a robot, the location of a feature point is desirably tracked between image frames, for example. The feature point is typically tracked by storing an image patch of a certain region around the feature point when the feature point is initially registered, and locating the stored image patch within subsequent frames.